"AGL was kind enough to announce, almost two or three years ago, that they intend to shut down Liddell in 2022," he said.

"Even under the Finkel review, they're only requiring that coal-fired power stations give three years' notice. AGL gave about seven."

Mr Yates said investors had made plans based on that information, which the Government could now jeopardise.

"At the moment, most of the industry is trying to replace capacity based upon a projected closure date of coal-fired power stations," he said.

"That's very difficult if a prime minister walks into the room and basically says, 'Well, I know you've been investing on that basis, assuming all this is going to happen, and you've been spending money developing projects, but I think I might just decide to legislate in some way and keep these clunkers open'.

"That doesn't help the market at all."

'An enormous amount could be done'

Mr Yates also said part of the blame for the nation's energy challenge lay with the National Electricity Market.

"If you want to go back a few years, you'd say the failure happens to be the National Electricity Market, which hasn't built one interconnector of any substance between states to allow you to actually move the most transportable substance on the planet," he said.

"South Australia has got in a position because the national regulator would not allow the construction of an additional transmission line so it could take power from Victoria or transmit power to Victoria.

"We've got an issue that we still don't have an additional cable from Tasmania.

"Tasmania could provide baseload capacity, it could be the battery to the National Electricity Market, but it is struggling to get a second Basslink to it.

"There's an enormous amount that could be done to deal with this and it's still not happening."